bath towels

[asm505]

I have a friend that has a really nice audi and she uses a regular old bath towel to dry the car. I am thinking this cannot be good, am I right?

[fdizzle]

you wont get to many posative responses on that . . . even high quality, color and dye free bath towels that have been washed a million times with perfume/powder/softner free detergeant have the potential to micro marr or create swirils . . . . .



If you want my oppinion . . . invest in four or six microfiber drying towes. Thats all I use. Genuine leather chamois that have been properly conditioned are also not a bad method for drying, it is just not a good idea to drape any drying device and pull it over your paint.



dab all that h2o up . .



If I had it my way, I would use microfiber bath towels, but I just am to poor . . . .

[imported_02ZTSfocus]

Most bath towels use a backing material that contains a heavy polyester thread that will cause marring. So in addition to what fdizzle said, the very design of a bath towel is going to cause marring on the paint.

[Accumulator]

Noting that I only touch our Audis with the softest MFs I can find and that I`ve posted about why I won`t touch *my* vehicles` paint with cotton towels [EDIT: this is *NOT* correct, see later post], I don`t mind changing hats and posting the following, hope it doesn`t sound like I`m contradicting my previous posts on the subject but this isn`t quite as cut-and-dried as we usually make it sound.



High quality 100% cotton towels *can* be fine. It`s not like every time somebody touched a vehicle with one in the pre-MF days they caused marring. The (potential) problems are that all 100% cotton towels aren`t created equal and even the good ones don`t stay nice and soft forever. My view is why take chances when MF is available (but the same caveats apply to MF too) but that doesn`t mean that every cotton towel will cause the kind of damage that I worry about; I`ve used plenty of cotton towels that are a *lot* softer than automotive paint. In fact, I used to use them on black ss lacquer...sometimes I regretted it, but not all the time by any means.



Note that back when I got my Mallett `vette, Chuck and his guys were using black cotton towels when they detailed. No marring, and Chuck was a custom painter before he switched to building tuner cars; he knows from how to detail paint. IIRC, MirrorFinishMan still uses cotton instead of MF.



I`d just advise your friend to keep an eye on those towels and replace them before she needs to rather than *after* they`ve caused a problem.

[fdizzle]

I agree here,



I will also contradict my previous post on this notion . . . .there are a few companies that make very high quality and refined cotton products suited for automotive detailing.



If your going to use a cotton product, make sure it is 100% cotton, try to find one that has a soft edge (not superwoven and tough, like a bath towel) that is white. white = no dyes, no mystery chemicals. Preshrunk cotton will usually have less lint too . . .



for ex: MG makes a super plush terry polishing towel. It feels softer than silk and for one 16x16 towel you gonna shell out 5 bucks. that cotton product will not harm you paint.

[imported_GregCavi]

Nothing beats a MF IMHO.



Greg

[RTexasF]

You are correct, there are better alternatives such as those mentioned.

[Spilchy]

I subscribe to Consumer Reports (yeah, I admit it) and they did a whole review on cotton towels.



NEVER judge a towel on how soft it feels in the store beacuse they indicate that manufacturers "finish towels with fabric-softening `hand enhancers` that wear off after a wash or two."



Believe it or not, they say a new brand of toweling made from a blend of cotton and bamboo are 25% softer than traditional all-cotton towels after multiple launderings.



They rated #1 the Lands End cotton/bamboo the softest towel followed by the #2 Lenox Platinum Collection.



With the all cotton towels they recommend Wamsutta Supima Classic and Charisma Egyptian as #1 and #2. Everyone`s Fieldcrest was 5th on the list.



If you can`t find the bamboo / cotton blend it sounds like you should stick with "Egyptian" cotton or it`s American counterpart "Pima."



But, I`m not sure what the edging is made of or if there are other types of fabric woven into the towel that cause marring. That`s what scares me about cotton.



With the abundance of high quality MF`s of various nap sizes at cheap prices, my days of cotton are LONG gone. I see zero need for them except using my old school (no longer available) Koala buffing towels for glaze removal. But I rarely do that any more.

[cchiu1026]

Sup guys, i have yet to pick up some quality mf towels. I`ve seen that many recommend pakshak, but what is the best of the best of the best if there is any.

[Accumulator]

Noting that I only touch our Audis with the softest MFs I can find and that I`ve posted about why I won`t touch *my* vehicles` paint with cotton towels...



Oops, that`s not true :o I was thinking of polishing/waxing/normal drying but *actually* I occasionally still use cotton towels on my paint for one specific job: catching potentially contaminated water that I blow out of seams/etc. with the compressor. This water often harbors gritty dirt from inside the nooks and crannies, so I want to blow it into the towel and *not* do any wiping or even blotting. A fluffy, absorbent cotton towel works great for this.



Spilchy- You gotta watch it with textiles from Lands` End ;) I have a lot of their towels and the quality varies to an incredible extent. E.g., some of the best towels I`ve ever used are some LE supimas I got in the early `90s. I still use them, they`re *still* soft, fluffy, absorbent, everything you could ask for in a towel. Ditto for some of their Egyptian cotton ones from that time. But their supimas and Egyptians of a more recent vintage don`t compare, *at all*. After just a few years they`re no longer as good as the decade-older ones! My bet is that they switch suppliers from time to time ;)



Heh heh, I haven`t thought of my Koala towels for ages either...still have them around somewhere, probably in the bottom of my "good cotton towels" barrel along with my *very* nice, but small, cotton towels from Emmons Coachworks (late `80s). Yeah, such towels are nice with stuff like #7.



On the edging/serging, I wonder whatever happened to the guy who used to reserge Charismas with 100% cotton thread. IIRC he`d even de-lubed his serger so it wouldn`t contaminate the towels. I can almost rememer his name...maybe Kevin sombody :confused: I think he was a Zaino distributor. I still have a bunch of his reworked Charismas, some still unopened.